The possibility for all registered users to upload their own strategies was extremely successful. Since then, Xu-Fu has grown immensely thanks to everyone who contributes. On a much smaller scale, however, we saw a number of strategies that were not up to the standards we set out. When I created Xu-Fu's Pet Guides, my goal was simply to provide my own strategies. That later turned into providing the best strategies for each fight and a good variety for all different levels of battlers.
We still think that's a good goal to have, but it's a vague one. The problem it created was that we never clearly defined those standards we'd like to see on the page. In the last weeks, the strategy curators and myself have formulated such guidelines and they are now ready to be shared:

We think these rules provide a good compromise between the freedom of uploading your own strategy and our efforts to keep the page accessible and helpful to everyone.
Please have a read through, and leave a comment if you disagree with anything in it.

I have some great news to share, and no, it's not WoW Classic related, sorry. It is, however, related to someone you have stumbled upon almost guaranteed if you've been using Xu-Fu to look up strategies in the last few months. So pretty much everyone who will read this. I am talking about DragonsAfterDark!

She is one of the most active pet battlers here on the page and so far has uploaded more than 700 strategies, many of which are the top picks and most favourited for their specific fight.
If you want to see more from her besides strategies, head over to her Twitch channel where you might see some live battles going on. With that amount of experience and knowledge, it is probably not surprising that she's now joining the ranks of Strategy Curators here on Xu-Fu!

Congrats and thank you so much for the invaluable help you are providing us fellow pet battlers :-)

To be honest, I didn't even realize it until someone in my stream pointed it out. I guess I could have done ManticoresAfterMorning, but I'm partial to dragons, and at the time I was streaming at night after the tiny human went to bed. ;)

The patch is live and with it the usual suspects - API problems ^^
Importing or updating your pet collection from the armory currently returns zero pets. This is an issue on Blizzards side and we'll need to wait until it's been addressed.
In the meanwhile, it's the perfect opportunity to build some better error messages in so you know what's going on when trying to update your collection :-)

Are you using any automated addon updater like the curse client? I've heard before that some of them or wrong settings in them result in a full re-import of your addons (incl. settings and teams) whenever you start WoW. Perhaps that helps in tracking down the reason!

The only buttons I've got on my "Pet Collection" page (https://www.wow-petguide.com/?page=collection) on the lower-left side are "Update Now" and "Change Region". There's no "Change Character" button. In case it matters, I'm on the EU region.

Okay, so here is how I got around the glitch. I updated (imported) my pets, with a character who I have not logged into since before the latest patch. It had to be one who had not set foot in the waters of 8.2. I hope this helps someone.

In the last weeks, Xu-Fu got a lot of additional help, both from veteran Xu-Fu collaborators and new people. Most of the work has been put into guides and they are definitely worth a shout-out here.
One by one, the page now hosts:

Pet Powerleveling GuideWritten by Nyari and translated by Shenk, this guide explains in detail where and how to level up your pets in the most efficient ways possible, from Super-Squirt days all the way to great farming spots for wild pet battles.

Most used PvE PetsAnother addition by Nyari, a Tier list of pets depending on how often they are used in PvE strategies (against tamers or pet challenges). While not strictly necessary, the top spots on this list make a great shopping list for new battlers to be able and beat many different fights very quickly.

New PvP guideThe PvP section also got a lot of love by Shenk and Rosqo.
In this article, you will find detailed information about the most common team setups and strategies, as well as concrete team suggestions. This new article also allows you to add your own PvP teams if you like :-)

TD and Rematch GuidesWe already had a guide on how TD scripts work and how to write them, written by Wazzak and Celellach.
Nyari and Shenk now followed up on this with a guide on how to use Rematch + TD Scripts.
And on the matter of TD Scripts, if you feel like trying your hands on writing them but feel stuck or just have a question, jump onto our Discord and we're happy to help! It's not too difficult and you don't need any programming knowledge to understand how it works and put your own scripts together :-)

I'd like to say thank you to all those mentioned on this page. Each of them has helped me with various aspects of pet battling, TD scripting, Strategy design, and pet skills and abilities. Others on Discord channel have been very patient with my silly questions. I'm amazed at how generous this community has been with their knowledge and time. It's opened up a whole new aspect of fun in World of Warcraft that I previously had hardly experienced. To all those folks, and to Aranesh, thanks for all you've done. Thanks for all you continue to do!

The recent maintenance paved the way for some big changes on Xu-Fu’s Pet Guides. If you joined us on Discord, you will have seen the beginnings of it already. Now it’s time to unveil the big news: Xu-Fu is going to transform from a page dedicated solely to providing the best strategies, to becoming the best pet trading platform on this planet!

We are going to introduce tools for you to compare collections, find compatible trading partners, offer up pets for others and to look for people who could give you a specific pet you might still be missing.
But we are not stopping there! We are already partnering up with other games to promote cross-trading, and once our user base is broad enough, ultimately offer the very same services for your beloved real life pets! Just imagine being able to trade your collection of Iron Starlettes for a cute puppy, with only a few clicks!

It truly is an exciting time, and to make all of this more obvious to each visitor, we are going to do a full rebrand.
Even though Xu-Fu lasted us a long time as a mascot, from this day onward, we will embrace the new direction with a title and logo:

Activity has picked up on Xu-Fu and I’m really excited to introduce you to the latest addition in pet collection tools: The Pet Moocher! Not an April fools joke, it’s a real thing!
Ever wanted to compare your collection to someone else for any duplicate, cageable pets you can trade between each other? Or maybe just be selfish and see which ones you could mooch from someone else? That doesn’t have to be a tedious task with lists and formulas, enter the Pet Moocher!

Sounds like a bad commercial, I know, but it is pretty sweet! So, how does it work? It’s not a tool here on the page but over at Xu-Fu’s Discord channel. Once you’re in (you need a Discord account for that, but that’s free as well), just head over to the channel trade-eu or trade-us and read the instructions. It’s super easy to use, you just enter your own character name + realm and those of another player, and within seconds the Pet Moocher will tell you something like this:

Yuvilee has 2 tradeable Pets, that Aranesh does not own:
Bananas, Thistleleaf Adventurer

Oh my, good that you ask! And if you order now, you will also get this amazing extra comment completely free!
But that's not all!!
Well, actually it is. The answer is quite simply: maaaaybe if I find the time for it? ^^

Pet battle PvP has never been my strong suit, making me rely entirely on other people to provide content for this part of the pet battling world. The latest newcomer to the Xu-Fu team kindly offered to provide his knowledge on that, admittedly lacking, part of the page: Welcome to Shenk!

The first new section up is focusing on the achievement Family Brawler, providing teams for every family right there, but you are of course more than welcome to add your own teams and ideas or leave comments.

Thank you so much, Shenk, for thinking up the idea of using the PvE strat layout for PvP teams! It's a great idea! I look forward to reading people's suggestions, and figuring out new ways to expand the format and get discussions going!

Long time no proper announcement, it’s time to change that! And not just because WoW just turned 14 in Europe - Congrats to that!

But there is another thing that’s overdue to mention:
For a couple of weeks now, Xu-Fu has seen some immense improvements. Most notably in loading times, which are reduced drastically, but there have been changes in the background in most areas that make the page faster, more flexible and more secure. All of that is thanks to Schlumpf!

Piece by piece he has worked through my own code and optimised it, changed it or replaced it with much better versions. I am immensely grateful for all the help and wanted to make sure that it’s known who you need to thank for all the recent improvements.

Hi, love the work everyone does here. I just had a question/observation regarding the improvements. I don't seem to be able to hover over the Alternatives in IE, but it still works with Chrome. Is this known/intended?

In the last weeks I had much personal stuff to do, but today was reserved for Xu-Fu and was able to catch up with a lot of stuff! The list is longer than usual, hang tight ^^

1. Giveaway winnerSadly Machiavelli never claimed his Cap’n Crackers, so I had to draw yet another winner. This time it goes to:

SeiriCerin#2343 as shown in this super cute image!
Please get back to me within 2 days to grab your loot code :-)

2. New addition to the teamNot exactly “new”, Jagûar has been around for a long time and worked very hard to get the entire Falcosaur strategy section up and filled with strategies! Strategy Curator is only a logical next step. Welcome to the team (again^^)!

3. Patch 8.1 PreparationThe next patch brings a new pet battle dungeon: Gnomeregan, as well as a new family achievement. Family Battler! Both sections are set up and can be filled with strategies already.

4. New alternatives sortingA tiny change, but it will have some obvious effects. I made a tiny tweak to the sorting of alternatives.
Before:Favourite > Pets in Collection > Tags > Average Rating
Now:Favourite > Pets in Collection > Average Rating > Tags

Having tags overrule the rating had some weird effects, and with the rating and favourite system being used widely now, it makes more sense to swap this around. Sorry for any confusion this might cause now!

5. Hazelnutty’s videosLong established in the pet battling world, Hazelnutty is putting out some awesome videos that I can only recommend.
Very recently she published a video with her best tips and tricks for BfA pet battling, including some very nice words about Xu-Fu!
It’s only appropriate to return the favour, so go watch the video and ideally her channel, it’s worth it for every pet battler:
Watch the video

6. More absence, oh no.Last but not least I have another personal note. The last two weeks of October I will be almost entirely offline and there will not be much new coming from my side on Xu-Fu. That might stretch well into November - depending on how this “real life” thing works out. But I’m not gone for good and will continue working on the page once I’m back! Promise :-)

Hazelnutty has saved me more than a few times. I only have one minor issue with her pet battle videos. They are 2-4 years ago and some of the moves have changed. She suggests moves that can no longer be used together. I still love them and I am a subscriber, just a little pet peeve of mine. Another great one is Lapz Gaming. He is simple and to the point. Sometimes his strategies are almost too easy. Love Xu-Fu's site, thanks for all your hard work.

I'm noticing that some pets are showing as not collected on strategy pages, when I do actually have them. My pet collection is up to date, and when I perform a search for it, it does appear on my pet collection page. I'm seeing them specifically today on the BFA Family Battler strats, but not sure if it is site wide or not.

Oooh, even within the BFA strats, the same pet is showing as not collected on one strat, and collected on another. Same pet, Snarly. This happened with another pet as well but I can't remember off the top of my head which one it was.

Hey! Could you check please if the pet is perhaps used in this strategy several times? That's a common thing then. If that's not the case, please tell me which strategies that is exactly and I'll have a look! Thanks!

Hi Aranesh! Is it possible that if it's an option in one of the other pet slots, but not the one selected specifically, that it shows as not collected? Let me see if I can locate the strats that I'm seeing it on :)

I have all four of the fishing daily pets, (Snarly/Toothy/Muckbreath/Chuck). Snarly (mine is lvl 1) is default chosen in the second slot, and shows as not collected ("Your pet: Missing") in slot 3, regardless of me selecting one of the other three fishing daily pets that is NOT Snarly in slot 2. I have a lvl 25 Toothy who I'd imagine should be default chosen in slot 2?

I'll look for the other battles where they use 2 of those four fishing daily pets and see if they all do it or not.

It seems that if the pets are the first ones selected for x spot, that if they are options in any slot to the right, they are shown as not collected. If there is a pet autoselected in x slot to the right, it's *not* showing as not collected in the slot to the left. (I hope that's clear? The logic follows that in instances where this is happening from what I have specifically noted since I started looking for the logic pattern)

Also, my pet that is 25 of the 4 options available is not being autoselected for a space where it's an option, which I seem to remember not being the case before, I thought it always selected the 25 option? Is this change, perhaps, because pets automatically adjust in level to your pets, so it's not going to pick your 25 first? If that's the case...I'd kind of like the option to retain the ability to just select my 25s site-wide?

Hazelnutty has quickly become my favorite guide producer, couldn't have done Uldir without her. It's very information-dense, but I'd rather pause a few seconds to process everything, than listen to other guide makers ramble on about irrelevant stuff.
I'll check out her pet battle guides too!

Hazelnutty is a gift! I really like her videos for the same reasons, too! I just want to see what it looks like and know what it does in a short window of time, and she does exactly that. And she's enjoyable to listen to!

Congratulations !(but next time please say at first that it's a random roll, it was amusing to find a good place and create a fitting mog but I have to admit that I don't participate to random roll contest, rng and me are ennemies since forever XD)

- The 2 pet codes only work for EU, sorry!
- You have to post with a Xu-Fu account. If you don't have one, top right to sign up, they are free :-)
- Your post must include a link to an image of your character with your favourite pet of choice. Pirate clothing optional but for extra style!
- You can post a picture until October 3rd. Shortly after, the 2 winners will be selected at random
- Winners are announced here and notified via direct message on Xu-Fu's. If someone doesn't claim their code, new winners will be selected.
- Only one entry per user, obviously :-)

Thanks everyone for reaching out about volunteer positions! Still looking, so if you're interested, give me a shout on Discord.

Meanwhile, I have a few news to share around Xu-Fu:

1. A warm (re-) Welcome to the first three volunteers: Nyari, Remte and Morazor!

Nyari will work mostly as News Writer and Content Creator for the German version of the page and I will help develop some better tools to make localized versions of the page easier to navigate.

Remte has always been very active in posting advice and finding errors on the page and will now be a Strategy Curator.

Morazor is the author of Magpie and as such the role Content Creator can't be more fitting!

2. You now have the option to include the strategy steps within rematch strings! It is on by default, but you have a slider right below the Rematch button to turn that off, if you wish.

3. A shout out to all strategy creators: I will remove the option to modify tags. Unfortunately, the tags system has been used very inconsistently, and sometimes even to push new strategies to the top by adding every positive tag available without them being true. In the future, more tags will be automated (especially the "Reliable" one), and only strategy curators will have access to tags. In that light, I will also remove all custom tags that have been added so far.
Sorry for any confusion or inconvenience because of this!

To point 3: Is it even possible to include strategy in the rematch string? It hasn't worked for me yet with any import. Yes I made sure the slider was in the correct position, I definitely have the strategy information in the paste.

A couple of minor issues:
1. The rematch string no longer includes minimum health (I think it used to?).
2. Some characters are encoded, e.g. apostrophes appear as #039.
3. This might be a Rematch bug. Sometimes the notes are empty after import. Strategy 1706 is an example of this (if you manually edit out the rematch string that the creator included in the notes then it imports okay).

1. It was never minimum health but minimum level. That should still be in! If it isn't somewhere, let me know please!
2. Fixed :-)
3. That's a bummer. It's because in this specific strategy, there is a rematch string within the comment which rematch recognizes and tries to add 2 teams. If you remove the rematch string manually from the import string comment, it will work. There is, unfortunately, nothing I can do about it.

With the addition of user-created-strategies, Xu-Fu has entered a new phase and is supporting more and more pet battlers out there in the world. Time to become a bit more structured and organised!
Volunteers have been a key part of Xu-Fu and I am both proud and grateful for the help I have received. Going forward, I want to make it a better experience for everyone involved, with a clearer role description, better access rights and more decision power for those who help with the project.

Here is what I need to make Xu-Fu even better:

News Writer (1-2)
Are you always up to date with everything pet related that’s going on? Would you like to moderate the News section of one of the most visited pet battling pages worldwide? Get in touch, I would love to hand over the News to someone who is eager to share news and updates on the pet battling world!
You’ll have access to my own article editor and it will be your decision what to post and when to post. And if you need any new tools, I am more than happy to add what you need!

Content Creator As a Content Creator, you own a section of the page containing your favourite topic. Are you a mad pet PvP mastermind who wants to share your insights? Do you love the funny interactions pets do and want to write about it? Or maybe you created a tool that you want to host somewhere and Xu-Fu’s might be a good place? Let me know, let’s discuss, and if we agree on it, you’ll get your own section with full editing rights and my support if you need any custom features coded.

Strategy Curator (1-2)
Every day new strategies are added to Xu-Fu’s. As a strategy curator, you will be the checks and balances. That does not mean going through each and every strategy to test it, but to have an eye on trends, to identify the very best ones and flagging them as staff picks. It could also mean reaching out to strategy creators who made mistakes and asking them if they want to fix that, or worst case, removing it from the page. This role comes with full editing rights for all strategies on Xu-Fu.

TranslatorMany parts of the page are being auto-translated already, but there are some gaps and some languages are not covered at all. If you visit Xu-Fu in your native language and want to help fill those gaps, please get in touch! The same languages as World of Warcraft are supported: German, French, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Russian, Portuguese, Korean and Chinese (simplified).

Any of this sounds good to you? Please send me a private message on Discord (Aranesh#6150) and let’s talk!

When Legion was released, I struggled very hard to keep up with the world quests and test+add strategies. Now with BfA, since everyone can upload strategies, every one of the new quests has a number of different alternatives available already.

It worked out very well, all thanks to you, the creators of all those strategies out there. A BIG THANK YOU!

And as a little treat I've just completed the last important feature for it: A "My Strategies" section!
Hover over your name on the top right, check it out. You'll see a summary of your strats, how they do, and you get notifications if someone writes a comment on your strategy :-)

Love what you've done with the site since I used to use it back in Legion. One thing that I think would be very useful though is a summary page that lists all the pets sorted by how many different strategies they are used in. maybe even cross referenced with your collection to only show pets you don't have already. That way you would better know what pets are used a lot and would be worth getting.

Not sure if I'm a big fan of the "upload strategies" feature. Each time I go back to a strat that I've used before (and saved the team because it worked), the front page for that particular team is now a new team and I either have to search for mine which worked before or sometimes I try out the new one and it doesn't work at all and I'm scrolling through the list trying to figure out which one was mine again. I liked the old way where the tried and true teams were the first on the page at least instead of the newest uploaded "well this is what I liked and worked for me" shows up. It's no better than scrolling through Wowhead comments almost. Maybe a ranking system so new strats with low ratings fall down off the main page would be a better way to handle newly uploaded strats at least.

Such a ranking system is already in place, but I think it needs a few tweaks to work better. Strategies rated higher should stay on top. "New" strategies do not get any preference, that is just informational but has no impact on the sorting.
However, what I noticed is that some strategies get filled with positive tags, which do have an impact on the sorting. That's something I have to review and change.

One more thing, if you are logged in and put a favourite (heart) to a strategy, it will always be shown on top for you!

I think the problem is that a new upload has 5 stars, likely due to the person uploading it rating it himself. So if a good one sits at 4.9, the new one will have preference. Probably better to require a certain amount of votes before it goes on top of everything else.

Also, the amount of votes and favourites has an effect as well. Strategies that have many votes (10+ and then different further steps), the value of the star rating is increased. So even if a new strat has 5 stars by the creator, another strategy with 4.5 or so, but with many different voters saying this, will still be rated higher.
This of course only kicks in after a certain time. As long as most strategies are pretty new, it has little effect.

The release of a new addon is always a very special time. All that anticipation, culminating into the first hours of entering new zones and experiencing all the new content that we only read about or maybe saw some videos. Or played on the beta, but it's not the same right?

All that is going to happen in just one hour. For that, Xu-Fu and I wish you an amazing start into this new expansion. Let everything else be aside for a while, embrace the experience, and enjoy it!

Im having issues with importing the Rematch Strings into my Niggles: Pet Teams addon for all of the BFA pet battles. Each time I try to import a string, I get the message "The pet team's opponent is unknown." In addition, I am noticing that none of the BFA pet trainers are in the drop down list of available opponents. (this may be a addon issue) Do you guys have any suggestions on how I can get this importing feature working again?

Thank you for your response. I downloaded the Rematch addon, which allowed me to import the strings. Before, I only had Niggles: Pet Teams, without rematch. Is there an easy way I could import all my teams I had setup through Niggles into rematch? I'm Dreading having to remake every single team since Draenor launch.

Niggles: Pet Teams relies on info about the pet tamers, such as a portrait and WoW's unique ID. I didn't have an opportunity to gather that info until I hit 120 and opened world quests. As the pet tamers are coming up as World Quests, I am gathering the info. An interim version with the first 18 pet tamers was released.over the weekend. A version with the remaining 6 will be released as soon as I can get the info for them. There is an 'Any Opponent' that can be used along with the 'Team Name' field for pet tamers that aren't yet known.
Niggles: Pet Teams doesn't have an export feature to Rematch. It would be tricky to convert the notes for Rematch, particularly if they are in the HTML format.

What's that ominous Plus sign right next to each strategy? Your way to add strategies to Xu-Fu of course!

It was long overdue and from this day onward you can stop adding your strategies into comments, because now you have access to a full new toolset allowing you to upload it right there as a new alternative!

Make sure to check out the Strategy Creation Guide if you have questions, or want to know how everything works exactly: https://www.wow-petguide.com/index.php?m=StratCreationGuide

And if you have any feedback or questions, post them here or send me a message!